Jimmy Weldon, a 1940s-era disc jockey and later kids TV host and voice actor whose ability to mimic a Donald Duck-like quacking voice led to his signature portrayal of a classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon duckling named Yakky Doodle, died July 6 in Paso Robles, California. He was 99.
Weldon, a Texas native born Ivy Laverne Shinn, was a World War II vet who had participated in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp when, after his military service, he sought work in radio, landing a job at a Chickasha, Oklahoma, station. It was there he began using the Donal Duck impression he’d been honing for years, turning the routine into a character named Webster Webfoot.
The character caught on with listeners and within a few years led to Dallas kids TV show called The Webster Webfoot Show, featuring Weldon operating a baseball-capped duck puppet.
After a move to Hollywood in the early 1950s,...
Weldon, a Texas native born Ivy Laverne Shinn, was a World War II vet who had participated in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp when, after his military service, he sought work in radio, landing a job at a Chickasha, Oklahoma, station. It was there he began using the Donal Duck impression he’d been honing for years, turning the routine into a character named Webster Webfoot.
The character caught on with listeners and within a few years led to Dallas kids TV show called The Webster Webfoot Show, featuring Weldon operating a baseball-capped duck puppet.
After a move to Hollywood in the early 1950s,...
- 7/11/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Jimmy Weldon, the cheery ventriloquist, kids TV host and actor who provided the voice for the endangered duck Yakky Doodle on Hanna-Barbera cartoons starting in the early 1960s, has died. He was 99.
Weldon’s death on Thursday in Paso Robles, California, was reported by American Legion Post 43 in Hollywood, where he was chaplain emeritus.
With the puppet Webster Webfoot, a duck he created in the 1940s, Weldon hosted TV shows for youngsters in New York, Los Angeles and cities in the San Joaquin Valley. The Texan also appeared on episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dragnet, The Waltons, S.W.A.T., B.J. and the Bear, Dallas, The Rockford Files, Diff’rent Strokes and It’s a Living.
Weldon voiced Yakky Doodle, a yellow duckling with green wings who is constantly being bailed out of trouble by his best friend, a protective bulldog named Chopper, on recurring segments of The Yogi Bear Show in 1961-62.
From left: Yogi Bear,...
Weldon’s death on Thursday in Paso Robles, California, was reported by American Legion Post 43 in Hollywood, where he was chaplain emeritus.
With the puppet Webster Webfoot, a duck he created in the 1940s, Weldon hosted TV shows for youngsters in New York, Los Angeles and cities in the San Joaquin Valley. The Texan also appeared on episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Dragnet, The Waltons, S.W.A.T., B.J. and the Bear, Dallas, The Rockford Files, Diff’rent Strokes and It’s a Living.
Weldon voiced Yakky Doodle, a yellow duckling with green wings who is constantly being bailed out of trouble by his best friend, a protective bulldog named Chopper, on recurring segments of The Yogi Bear Show in 1961-62.
From left: Yogi Bear,...
- 7/11/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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